The first five stories of the royal hospital and temple combination building were entirely taken up by the temple. There was one of Walter's rising rooms, just inside the front door and off to the side, for emergency use and that was where Walter led Isaac and Lenna. The duo stole a brief glance into the temple and saw stained glass depicting El'Gra, an organ, a hundred tapestries along the walls, and enough seating for a few hundred people at a time. The four of them easily fit inside of the rising room and Isaac frowned deeply at Walter.
"Are you really going to make us use one of these godsforsaken things again?" Isaac questioned Walter directly.
Walter smirked and nodded. "Of course. It's either this or eight flights of stairs. He's on the ninth floor."
"We hav-" Lenna started but was interrupted by Walter closing the door and smacking the number nine. Lenna scowled at Walter as the entire room shifted slightly with a reverberating clunk. "Walter." She growled but was too taken off balance by the suddenly moving floor to further express her irritation. They were nearly to the ninth floor when she finally took a deep breath. "We would've had enough time to take the stairs."
"Yeah, but I don't do unnecessary work, like taking the stairs up eight stories." Walter told her.
Gypsy had laid down, and was apparently entirely unbothered by the room moving with them in it, and Isaac looked like he was slowly getting used to it, so Lenna just sighed. "Fine." She grumbled. "But I am taking the stairs on the way down."
"Agreed." Isaac added.
Walter shrugged. "I'll be leaving before you anyway." He told the duo. "After stopping in to say hi, I've got other people that I gotta meet with today."
"Oh?" Isaac asked with a raised eyebrow. "Not another girl I hope." He teased.
Walter chuckled and shook his head. "No, well, if you count Philia's mom as 'another girl' then sure." He replied. "I also can only put off meeting with the old man for so long. At some point he's just gonna chase me down."
"So I take it we won't be seeing very much of you for the rest of the day?" Isaac questioned. So far, he and Lenna only really had one interesting thing to look into, and it was the bard from earlier that morning. Isaac was curious about what happened to anyone the guards decided to 'disappear', and what happened to the one receptionist that had gotten replaced, but looking into those things felt like a good way for him and Lenna to get caught up in something that neither of them really felt like dealing with.
"No idea." Walter said with a shrug. It was at that time that they reached the floor they were after and the door opened to reveal a small lobby. There was a desk with two people behind it who looked more bored than anything. As soon as they realized that new people had arrived they sat up a bit straighter and tried to look like they had been working.
"I guess looking busy is the same everywhere." Isaac commented under his breath which got a quiet snicker from Walter and a shake of her head from Lenna.
Walter waved to the two at the nurses station as he led the duo down one of the two hallways. "We're here to see the Fatebreaker, he knows we're coming!" Walter called out to them a little too loudly for a hospital. Neither assistant healer bothered to give him an auditory reply but their looks of irritation and consternation expressed how they felt quite plainly.
Walker stopped about half way down the hall and reached for a doorknob before he turned around and opened the one across the hall from that one. The door latch clicked softly and Walter held the door open but in place for a moment. He looked like he was about to say something when Xlen's voice could be heard from inside. "Come in." The old warrior told the trio and Gypsy. "Not that you knocked anyway." He added loud enough for Walter to easily hear.
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Walter pulled the door open and gave the occupants a casual wave. "I brought them, as requested." He told Xlen as he walked inside to give Isaac and Lenna enough room to enter as well.
Isaac and Lenna's eyes scanned the room as they entered. It had one bed with everything necessary for Cainen to be comfortable either in the room with him or in one of the small attached ones. The man in question was seated upright in his bed and was looking out the window. The room was furnished in the usual white, gold, and green of the rest of the city which made the occupants stand out starkly against it. Xlen, of course, wore his sash and belt that matched a sunrise and not the divine forest vibe of the city as a whole. Cainen was a bit different.
Elves were not supposed to look old. That just wasn't a thing. Their skin didn't wrinkle and sag and their bones didn't become more brittle with age, necessarily. Their joints could get worse but it was really just an accumulation of injuries and not simple age. That was one of the ways to tell how old an elf was, by how they walked, sat, and stood. It was usually possible to tell how many old injuries plagued their body even if their hair, skin, and eyes were still as smooth and vibrant as they had been five centuries prior. Cainen was not like that, no, Cainen looked old.
The old man known as the Fatebreaker had pigmentless hair and skin that was so pale that it was nearly see-through. His cheeks were sunken and his shoulders sagged with the weight of a millennium. He slowly turned his head to get a look at Isaac and Lenna as well as Walter and Gypsy. His eyes were entirely gone. In their place there were pools of white, light gray, middle gray, dark gray, and black all swirling, mixing, and separating from each other.
Isaac usually waited for important people to introduce themselves first for a few reasons that just simply didn't seem applicable in the current situation. Isaac bowed his head slightly towards the Fatebreaker. "I am Isaac Wexler, more and more have been calling me the demigod of darkness, though, I must confess that I can neither confirm nor deny that fact myself." He greeted the ancient being who had lived longer than the history of nearly every human country.
Lenna bowed lower than Isaac. "I am Lenna V'Nova, his mate and the reason for our visit." She explained. Lenna really hoped that her family name wasn't about to cause any problems as the ancient mage's milky pools took them in.
"You two look like you tried to hug a porcupine." Cainen told them bluntly. "Take a seat." He told the duo and then looked at Walter. "Is there anything you need, boyo?"
Walter cracked a smirk as he strode over to stand next to Cainen's bed. "Nope. Just here to make sure you're still breathing. Well, and I guess to see if you wanna play kingsman with me before I head back out on the road. It's been a while and I think I got rusty." Walter said casually to the figure that many would put on the level of the demidivine.
Cainen nodded sagely. "We can play, and you can tell me about your adventures, tomorrow. 'You got other people that you gotta meet with today', after all." He used Walter's exact words from the rising room back at him.
"After lunch?" Walter asked and Cainen nodded. "Okay, I'll leave you and the lovebirds to it then." Walter told him and turned to leave. "Come on Gypsy, we'll be back tomorrow." He said while leaving and giving Isaac, Lenna, and Xlen a wave and nod respectively. Once Gypsy left with him, Walter closed the door behind him.
Cainen looked at the duo and smiled. "Now, explain to me your wish. I must hear it first hand." He told the pair and gestured towards a few chairs that were close to his bed but out of the way.
Isaac and Lenna explained Lenna's wish, in better detail than they had to Xlen the night before, after they had taken their seats near the Fatebreaker's bedside.
After that Cainen nodded sagely once more. "We can try." He told the duo in relation to their wish. "You both will need to meditate and sleep until the full moon. We will meet the afternoon before the full moon to talk again, and I will check your healing progress." He instructed the duo and reached to his side where a cup sat a few feet out of reach.
"That's it?" Isaac wondered and grabbed the cup for Cainen.
Cainen raised his eyebrows in question as he accepted the water filled cup. "You wish to speak of payment first? I am not completely certain that I will actually attempt to cast the spell on you both. I will try, but if the stars do not align, then they do not align." He explained around a few sips of water.
"Then we can talk about it when we next meet, as long as you are alright with waiting for the payment for a little while after our deal has concluded." Isaac agreed.
"Master Su'Sol," Lenna began. "This cannot be easy for you, and you do not even know us, so, why are you agreeing to even try this?"
Cainen smirked. It was the smile of a man that knew far too much. "It must be finished before the twenty first day of the year. Earlier is fine, but absolutely no later." He told them and handed Isaac back the cup of water. "Now, I am tired, let this old man rest and I will see you again in nine days."
Isaac and Lenna got up and offered Cainen the same slight bows as before and turned to leave. "If anything changes, I'll let you know right away." Xlen promised them with a nod.
"Thanks." Isaac said and returned the gesture. Once the duo were away from prying ears, and on their way down the many flights of steps to reach the ground floor, Isaac turned to Lenna. "That's my birthday, well, my spawn day." He reminded her. "I wonder why it needs to be done before then."
"Who knows." Lenna replied. After she was silent for a moment she took a deep calming breath and let it out in a woosh. "I'm getting jittery." She confessed to her mate. "We need to talk to Lua before we go through with this." She thought aloud. "I think we are at the point where only the old gods can tell us if this is a bad idea or not."
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